Marti Ann Whitcomb, 52, of Tampa, FL., a native and former resident of Oil City, died at 6:15 a.m. Friday, May 2, 2014, at her home, following a courageous, two-year battle with cancer.
Her husband, Christopher T. Whitcomb, was at her side. They had resided for more than 14 years at 13204-D National Drive, Tampa.
Marti was born Jan. 19, 1962, in Oil City, the first of two daughters to Conrad L. and Rona Jean Mohnkern Reisinger. The family moved to Altoona in 1966 and then to Fort Lauderdale, FL., in 1972, returning to the Oil City/Franklin area every year to visit with relatives and friends.
Marti graduated from Hollywood Hills High School near Fort Lauderdale in 1980 and worked for several employers before joining Marina Bay Resort as the hostess in the company’s private restaurant and club.
She returned to Oil City in the mid-1980s after her grandfather had a heart attack. She worked for a brief period at Thrift Drug in Oil City and then at the Fashion Bug store in Cranberry Mall. She was promoted to a management position and was transferred to the company’s Meadville Mall store but later left the retail firm and went to work at Sandy K. Hovis State Farm Insurance in Oil City. She attended Galloway United Methodist Church while in Oil City.
After returning to Fort Lauderdale in the mid-1990s, she became the daytime restaurant manager at the beachside Bahia Mar Yacht Resort. She soon met her husband-to-be, who worked at the Best Western Oceanside Inn. Both of them continued to work in the hotel and restaurant business, living for a time in Key Largo, FL., and Daytona Beach, FL., as well as in West Palm Beach, FL., before moving to Tampa. They were married in Tampa on Sept. 29, 2001.
While in Tampa, Marti worked for several years as the banquet manager at the Holiday Inn near Busch Gardens. She last worked at an Olive Garden restaurant until her failing health and cancer treatments forced her to step away.
Marti loved to cook, whether the dish was simple or complex, and had an uncanny ability to taste something new and figure out the seasonings and other ingredients. Most of all she loved to share those dishes with friends, neighbors and co-workers. She often took food to the gatehouse at her apartment complex, to an employee at the grocery store, to the staff at a shop she liked to visit and, more recently, to the doctors, nurses and others at the many medical offices and facilities she had to visit regularly.
Although her life was cut short by cancer, it was full. She lived in Hawaii for a short period of time, vacationed in Canada and Mexico as well as the U.S., and, with her husband, took more than a dozen cruises in the Caribbean and often visited the Orlando resorts. She also modeled while in Florida and was a contestant in the 1983 Miss Florida USA Pageant.
She befriended everyone she met. In recent weeks she was unable to talk due to the cancer in her neck and throat, so she communicated by pen and paper. Moments before she passed, she wrote in her journal: “I love all of you. Good night. We’ll see ya upstairs. Love, me.”
In addition to her loving husband, she is survived by her beloved parents in Fort Lauderdale; her sister and brother-in-law, Carol L. and Jeff Brown of Oil City; her brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Mark and Kerry Whitcomb of Spring Lake, N.J.; her nephew, Julian Brown of Oil City; her niece, Hannah Whitcomb of Spring Lake; and her uncle, Glen L. Mohnkern of Oil City.
She was preceded in death by her grandparents, Mildred E. Reisinger of Franklin and Glen L. and Ellen C. Mohnkern of Oil City.
The family will receive friends from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, May 9, at the Reinsel Funeral Home & Crematory in Oil City.
Funeral services will be held at 1 p.m. Friday in the funeral home. The Rev. Jerry Breedlove Jr., pastor of the Oil City Community Alliance Church in Oil City, will officiate.
A committal service will follow in Oak Hill Cemetery at Sandy Lake.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorials in Marti Whitcomb’s name be made to Melech House, a Hospice facility, at 1125 N. 52nd St., Suite 100, Tampa, FL., 33617.